401. What a person is causes his ____.

402. When the herbalist keeps on preparing medicine and starts to tell amusing stories, it shows that he has reached the end of his knowledge of medicine.  (This means that when a strong man who used to plant yams comes and starts to plant cocoyams, it shows that he has become a wretched, poor person [with mouth of ashes].)

403. The greeting of the harmattan is around the fire.  (The joy of the child is when he stays on his mother's body when there is no trouble.)  [Mother free to give him attention.]

404. When someone I have invited to come and eat washes his hands up to the arms, does he expect that I have food extending as far as the river?

405. If you shake hands with a syphilitic person, he will want to embrace you.

406. The bow that shoots the tiny bird should be given twenty small arrows.

407. When the bachelor has finished dancing, the morning ashes [from last night's fire] are still waiting for him.

408. The insect that refuses to hear [is stubborn] hears in the nest of the birds.

409. If rhe rat jumps into the water with the lizard, the lizard dries off but the rat does not.  (When a weak person joins a strong person in starting a quarrel, the strong person goes home and the weak person bears the trouble resulting from it.)

410. The blacksmith who does not know how to make a gong should look at the butt of a gun.  (One who is ignorant can learn by watching one who knows something.)

411. When a chicken perches on a fence, the chicken dances and the fence dances [sways, rattles].  (No one who quarrels with another person has peace of mind.)

412. Akîdî  [similar to black-eyed pea] is not new food to the dove.  (A corpse is nothing new to the earth.)

413. One does not tell a bearded person not to lick okra soup, but rather that his  mouth needs wiping.  (One does not tell a wise person that disputation is bad, but rather that if he starts it, he must bear the consequences.)

414. If the female sheep wants to grow horns, she must have a strong skull.  (When a person  starts to do something, he should see that his bag is heavy [presumably with money].)  (One who eats a child's food tells him a sweet story [to distract him from the theft].)   (Cf. One who becomes intimate with a woman does not know when he will let out a secret.)

415. Always coming, coming, did not permit the duiker to sit down  [It is a very active animal].  (Cf. Always doing, doing, did not permit the woman to grow a mustache.)

416. Something happened to the big cocoyam that caused it to shout nwererem .  [Refers to squeaking sound made as cocoyams dry.] (Things do not happen in vain.)

417. It is not good for women to squat in a large gathering [undignified].  (To speak bad language in public is not good.)

418.  When the bachelor starts to cook and starts to gather calabashes, one [of those tasks] is unsuccessful.  (When one does to two kinds of work at once, neither one is successful.)

419.  You do not use the way lizards lie on their stomachs to know which one is healthy. [All lizards lie the same way.] (You do not use the garments that are worn these days  to know which people carry sickness.)  [Possible explanation:   People  years ago wore different garments to indicate that they were carrying diseases.]

420.  When the stone flies up, the water pot is afraid.  (When people start to make noise, they stop it when the chief enters.)

421.  If a person defecates without sharpening  [squeezing to a point] the stool, it becomes useless.  (When a man and his companion have a quarrel and it ends without settling it properly, the discussion is in vain.)

422.  One who chases after women has no hairs left on his head [He depletes his  substance].  (One who is extremely fond of sweet things is unable to save even a halfpenny.)

423.  The woman who cooks ogiri  knows which is the blind fly.  (One who is a market trader knows which market] is most profitable.)

424.  One who gets two people together leads the spirits to kill one of them.  (A trickster.)

425.  Where you went forogiri  I have already gone for fire.  (I have known what you knew.)

426.  The ancient spirit  [old man], even if he [usually] does not run, will run when the sheep carries off his [smoking] pipe.  (One who is weak [lazy] accomplishes something difficult when a pressing need arises.)

427.  The bat that does not perch when its companions perch is an odd bat.  (One who does not do something when his companions do it is a person of odd behavior.)

428.   We do not take it that the leopard, in vanquishing the monkey, can then call the monkey-child's apple the leopard-child's apple.  (We do not take it that a person, in helping someone else, can then tell the one who is being helped to answer to the name of the one who is  helping him.)

429.  The arrow the child used to kill a bird--it was an adult who carved it.  (Bad things are learned from bad people.)

430.  When the termite finished flying, it fell to the toad.  (When the know-it-all has  finished doing his best, he behaves like a normal human being.)

431.  The grasshopper that the plantain-eater [noisy bird] catches is deaf.  (If it is known that leprosy is contagious, and a stubborn  person and a person whom the sickness is killing eat and drink together,  if the sickness infects him, that person brought it upon himself.)

432.  When a child stays near an adult, if he does not chew pepper he will chew kola nut.  (One who stays near a knowledgeable person learns  something from him.)

433.  The chicken that is carried on the head does not know the difficulties of walking.  (One who is always given something or has something done for him does not know that things are difficult.)

434.  The rat that runs around the  (imitation) coffin is trying to bring a  fall on himself.  (If one who looks for a quarrel encounters  one who is stronger than he, the one who is stronger than he does one thing to him.)  [Implication is that he gets a beating.]

435.  One uses a small cutting of yam in order totest the soil.  (One learns about a person's behavior little by little.)

436.  One for whom the üsürügada is being played dances not knowing that üsürügada is a dance of the spirits.  (One who is treated like a baby all the time does not know that he is being misled.)

437.  The flute-player must wipe his nose.  (The worker, after working a while, stops to eat.)
438.  The chicken that was used to buy oil said that after buying, one should remember him.  (The slave who is sensible enough to do something that yielded something good will be treated well.)

439.  Don't take away my axe from the [name of place] -- I do not use it to cut it.  (Don't worry me because what I am saying is important.)

440.  When okra counts its time, it is mature.  (One does not tell a young woman not to get pregnant when her time has come.)

441.  Rams lock horns [with each other].  (A ___ or a foolish person.)

442.  Ewumagala [an animal] said that he would not, because fire is burning the thick forest, fail to walk proudly [like a prominent citizen].  (One  would not expect that, because outcasts are beautiful and have become proud people, a person who is not an outcast should become an outcast.)

443.  Gas that exposes a person sticks at the opening of the buttocks.  (When one is going to put a person in trouble, there is no  way that he can find that he will not try.)

444.  On hunting day the cane rat is hunted in its own path.  (Let it be now, we shall see another day.)

445.  The cricket knows how to stop up the entrance to his hole [in the ground].  (When the time  is reached that a trickster has completed his tricks, he takes  the time to find out what he will do next.)

446. When the lizard falls into a pit, he finds out who are his enemies.  (When troubles befall a person, then he finds out those who love him and those who do not love him from the place where help is.)

447. Borrowed oil is not enough for [lit. does not catch] the soup.  (It is not good to do a thing half way.)

448. If I shake hands up to the shoulder it turns into trouble.  (If one starts a quarrel and crosses the boundary, it becomes a war.)

449. Hot soup should be licked very slowly.  (One should go slowly in doing something difficult.)
450. One leg is not enough to support his mother's waist in a time of stress.  (One who excels in knowledge does not know everything that happens in a day.)  [Nobody knows everything.]

451. As it is for someone with ringworm so it is for someone with crawcraw.  The sheep is the counterpart of the goat.  (Treat a person as others like him are treated, because all human beings are the same.)

452. When sleep starts to be sweet [deep], snoring begins.  (When husband and wife get along well in their lives, their pleasure knows no bounds, they do not know when they kissed each other.)

453.  When the mushroom starts to become a slave to the ground, it will sprout from the base of a large tree.  (When a mischievous person finishes playing tricks, if trouble results, anything he is asked he will not know the meaning of.)

454. When a great tree falls and breaks, the birds fly away.   (When death kills the one who looks after the household, the people he was looking after run away because  of fear of hunger.)

455. The snail uses a  smooth tongue in going over a thorn.  (By going slowly one can avoid quarrels.)

456. The muskrat scrapes palm nuts [with its teeth] when it is in labor.   (When necessity pushes a man, he does not know when he begged an enemy for help.)

457. If I  am sent on an errand to deliver food, I deliver it, but if I am told  to carry it on my head I refuse.  (If there is someone I can  help to release him from his difficulties [I will do so],  but if it comes to supporting him further....)

458. You have gathered together, you who eat  the old vulture.  (Wise people and  their counterparts  meet together.)

459.  When the pot is on the fire,  the child [poor child, orphan] runs errands assiduously.  (When a quarrel is taken to court, the clerks  and the go-betweens  [self-appointed intermediaries] are treated well.)
460.  The rat does not own the palm nut and the large squirrel does not own the palm nut, yet they both come and fight in the open.  (It is like two men who come and start to fight about something that does not belong to them.)

461.  No matter how large the calf, it must kneel to suck at its mother's breast.

462.  Some people will sling sacks over their shoulders, come and kill  snakes, then carry then in their hands.  [Refers to not making good use of what people have.]

463.  If fire burns tortoise with his thick shell, how will it treat chicken whose leg is bare?  (The trouble that befalls the wealthy man and doesn't let him recover, if it befalls a  poor man it kills him.)

464.  A boil should not sprout up in  the mouth of a flutist.  (Let not bad things happen to a kind person in his work.)

465.  The small bird said that when young people learn to shoot without aiming, he will fly without perching.  (When a person shows that he is wise, he is treated in such a way as to show that he does not know anything.)

466.  Where there is no cow, the sheep becomes one who moos.  (In the land where [only] one person is wise, that person becomes chief over the others.)

467.  It is said that Okoroaføo is the sheep that goes around with goats.  (He is foolish.)

468.  It is said that he is the stupid one [mee a  refers to bleating sound] among his mother's children.  (One whose isolation is more than that of others.)

469.  It is said he did to someone what the river toad did to the house toad.  (Beating a person very well.)

470.  Do not underestimate the small pot that is boiling over on the fire.  (The herbalist who is seen as a lizard's herbalist [quack] then kills people with poison.)

471.  If a dog is carried in a basket, he  will chew up its cloth lining.  (When one ignores a child, saying that he is ignorant, he does something very serious [life-affecting].)

472.  The water that remains in the broken pot remains there for the dog.  (Cf. A lazy person goes here, there and everywhere, but his work still waits for him.)

473.  The herbalist is summoned to clear up the eyes, and he comes and puts in pepper.  (It seems that if a girl is sent to be taken care of by a person, he/she comes and teaches her bad behavior.)

474.  The rat should not purposely chew the doctor's bag, and the doctor should not purposely curs the rat.  (No one should provoke a quarrel with another person; if one knows his own way, let him say that things are peaceful.)

475.  One who reaches a land where people cut off their ears should cut off his own and contribut it.  (One who travels to another land should behave as those people behave.)  [When in Rome, do as the Romans do.]

476.  The toad does not call its companions wøokøom .  (As it is for someone with ringworm, so it is for someone with crawcraw.)  [The pot calling the kettle black.]

477.  It is said that hydrocele is not anything in the crotch (?); it is not  something the head can carry.

478.  If it were not that this child and I were brothers, I would long ago have had him put in prison because of the bad things he does.

479. If the tree did not strike the child in the back of the head, he would not know that the back of his head was sore.  (One to whom nothing has happened is ignorant [of the ways of the world].)

480. The tortoise fell into a pit of feces; when they came to take him out, he  said that the smell was killing him.  (Doing something quickly when it is unnecessary.)

481. The thing that the chicken chases after when it is raining, that thing must be important to it.  (A person striving and not avoiding anything in order to obtain what he needs.)

482. If a hen's tail is plucked, the cock will be happy. (If someone helps me get what I want, I will be happy.)

483. If a child is given something bigger than he is accustomed to, he asks if it has been given for him and someone else.

484. The yam learns to burn me then I learn to open my mouth while eating it.

485.  Who is it who, after having salt placed in his mouth, will  spit it out?  [No one will refuse a good thing.]

486. Where a child cries and points  his finger, if his mother is not there his father is there.

487. When one is from a village suffering famine, it is said that if someone starts to cook he says  "puta;"  if someone starts to scrape something out he says "pata."  [He is so beset by hunger that he confuses verbs.]

488. What a child  cooks has too much salt; he does not cook mai mai .

489. The goat who died said that his outer claws should be removed.

490. It is the one who holds the handle of the knife who does the cutting.

491. The cocoanut said that it knew how life would be, so it climbed upward with water inside it.

492. A friend, rather than take meat from his friend and throw it away, should say that he will   not eat.

493. If all goats become useless and worthless,  when the creditors come, which of them will they take?

494. Where the knife is sharpest is where one strikes a blow with it.  [Wears out faster there.]

495. If one takes away a weak person's knife, he gives up being at home .

496. A certain person was crossing  a bridge,  his knife fell into the water and he  threw his sheath in as well, saying that when he pulled out his knife he would pull out his sheath.

497. One who  points at the feces has licked it.

498. The drunken chicken has not seen a mad hawk.  [Hawk is much worse.]

499. One who plays about with a dog brings to it a large lump of feces.

500. When the female goat chews the cud, her child watches her mouth.

501. When the white chicken falls into yellow palm oil, its beauty is spoiled.

502. When one finger is dipped into the oil, it soils all of them.

503. If stubbing the foot against a rock brings good luck, let it [that kind of good luck] not come to me.

504. One who says that he is the brother of a muskrat should cut off his [the muskrat's] mouth.  [stop talking too much]

505. Rather than fill my stomach and fall into the road, let me eat only a small amount.

506. The person who carries both water and wine knows which  one burns the head more.

507. Rather than the yam be too strong [from undercooking], let the firewood be used up [in longer cooking].

508. To continue wrestling for a long time does not show strength, but rather the one who wrestles a person down is the  strong one.

509.  The young animal denies, the young wasp denies, what struck my dog blind?

510.  If water runs out and enters a small pond, and if water then runs out and enters a river,  into what will the river enter?

511. In a place where the thorn pierces the chicken, a human being cannot live.

512. The millipede says that one who steps on it  cries out, but it itself who was stepped on does not cry out.

513. Does one tell the person who is chewing on dry food to drink water?

514. I will not because I stay near the base of the ogele  [bitter food] andsay that the ogele  is not bitter.

515. If the soup is good and the fufu is good, I have a boil in my throat.

516. The foolish person does not know when the large portion of breadfruit is being divided.

517. When a good mouth holds the hard lump it is like a lump of soft palm fruit.

518. Tomorrow is pregnant.  [No one knows the future.]

519. The mother hen walks, her children run.

520. When the chicken steps on her child, it does not kill it.

521. One who mistreats an orphan -- will he take his own child with him when he dies?  [He should remember that his own child remains behind to suffer for the father's behavior.]

522. Because I smiled, did I say that the young woman should reject her husband?  [One thing does not necessarily mean another.]

523. A short person is the friend of children.

524.The dog that chases an automobile  spoils its [the dog's] speed.

525. If you want to see an old woman's teeth, give her sour wine.

526. If you pull out the leach from behind the dog's ear but you do not show it to him, it is as though he were pinched with the fingernails.  [Be honest.]

527. If one is outrun by a snail [laziness], one who has meat should not give it to him.

528. If people are afraid of a large-waisted person, who will marry her?

529. Let's finish giving to those who are awake, then give to those who are asleep.

530. One who holds me to the ground holds himself.

531. When a blind person starts to lead a blind person, they fall into a pit.

532. One who suffers from hydrocele does not defecate on ordinary ground .

533. One who always wants to talk says that his mother is involved in her journey.

534. If the chicken keeps on pecking at the ground, her neck becomes strained.

535. One by one the house and the compound are filled up.

536. One should sip hot soup slowly.

537. If the chicken's egg breaks the palm kernel, the stone is covered with shame.

538. If one counts one and then counts two [offenses], his knife slashes to the bone.  [His revenge starts to get serious.]

539. One who leaves quickly takes the light away quickly.

540. The lobster says that it does not eat if it does not strike its head on the ground.  [That is its method of killing its food.]

541. The old woman who bears a child and groans  is causing young women to be afraid.

542. One does not tell a wise adult to get out of the sun.

543. One who is foolish does not know that war means death.

544. When an adult outgrows drinking cocoanut milk he drinks wine.

545. One who shoots with gunpowder shoots out of his own bag.  [He pays for what he does.]

546. If an animal escapes today, tomorrow will be another hunting day.

547. The day I come to hunt, the deer climbs upward [out of gunshot range].  [Hard-luck person]

548. People who say, "Let me take a little," do not know that snuff is money.

549. When the basket is untied, the meat is eaten.

550. When the wildcat is driven away, you ask the chicken how far away it[the chicken] went.  [Must have strayed far into the bush to attract a wildcar.]

551. The one who saw the  spirit knows how big his head was.

552. When an old woman has a new cloth she goes to the dispute-settling meeting without being invited.

553. One who tries to get something good done looks for the heart of the situation.

554. The Igbo people have a proverb that says that when sleep starts to be sweet, one starts to snore.

555. I am still of the belief that the hawk perches and the eagle perches, and the one that tells the other not to perch, let his wing break.

556. If one  stays under the vulture [in the rain?] but does not avoid [try to keep from] getting wet, the vulture is asked to shake its wings.

557. There are two ears but they can not listen to two speeches [at the same time].

558. When  death wants to kill the beetle , it [the beetle] starts to fly on the ground.  [Becomes stubborn about taking care of itself.]

559. One who does not have a mother does not have his mother's friends either.

560. After continual struggle the stomach ache kills a man and runs into the bush; when ever someone waits for it, it returns to the earth.

561. One who sees someone with a fly perched on his mouth should leave it there--does he know whether it is something they eat?

562. The muskrat that cures people should cure its own mouth.

563. The pathway of the ©od?u [type of rat] should be for the odu; the pathway of the oguru [another type of rat] should be for the oguru..

564. If one performs a sacrifice and does not see vultures, what about the young spirits? [Considered bad if spirits do not participate in the sacrifice.]

565. One who because of a dog's head changes residence, then starts to clear the ground and sees the dog's head, is it a good thing?

566. The cry that the farm owner should cry for the partridge; the partridge will cry for him.  [Partridge is the one that eats the crop, yet it does the crying.]

567. The cry of the bird when held in the hand is not the same as when it enters the forest.

568. One who shoots a gun and falls to the ground is not a strong man.

569.The [lump of] fufu is afraid; it asks the green vegetable to accompany it.

570. The market where a woman has a boyfriend, if she has not painted her body with uli  she will not go there.

571. One whose wife holds him in hunger, a fight with a gun is better than he.

572. One who hunts an animal without someone to cover the flanks for him kills [only] an animal that has lost its way.

573. One who has no kola nuts for an unexpected visitor will not have kola nuts for one who has made an appointment.

574. One who has bad buttocks [therefore cannot sit down] denies a seat to one who has good buttocks.

575. One who is praised by women uses "let us take this, let us take this" to claim goodness.

576. It is not good for the palm nut and its brother to have something come between them.

577. Tortoise knew what he did in using a knife [instead of his claws] to dig.  [Behaving abnormally because of a bad deed.]

578. One who suffers an attack of lice, scratching afflicts him so much that he does not know when feces are eaten.  [avarara - onomatopoeic word]

579. If the face is not good [as in bad mood], the back of the head eats kola.

580. A rat and a cat who get along well together, when will they be friends better than brothers?  [Never.]

581. Calling  a thorn by name at the  time of its funeral.

582. People use one thing to do another:  if good wine is left overnight you add salt to it.  [Requires a freshening agent.]

583. It is not good for a leopard to wash its hands where the partridge bathes.

584. Fire makes strong salt.  [Blocks of salt were heated to strengthen them.]

585. The old woman will find someone else in her own circumstances.

586. Ham ma agawa je eji ije ogwo aløo.

587. If one stays in the uni  the antelope runs out.

588. Mma mma [greeting] shows respect; greetings soothe the feelings [lit., heal sickness.]

589. "Ha, ha" is an exterior thing [lit., laughed on top of the mouth], but love is in the heart.

590. The tortoisee uses his  common sense to reach the cooking stand.

591. When there is only one chicken left, it stays under the bed [near home].

592. If the rain permits, the moon will shine.

593. Talk does not stay in the mind and still be pleasing.  [Must be voiced.]

594. It has been a long time since the arrow and the lizard started a fight; it the lizard had been the crying type, it would have cried.

595. The things that happened yesterday are beyond the knowledge of a guest.